With all the emphasis on inbound marketing, I thought I would put in a plug for the good old US Post Office.

There is no doubt that the shift has happened – we buy and are influenced increasingly via the web. For the organizations we work with – those with F2F and more complex sales and marketing – the disruption has already taken place. We are helping our clients integrate an entirely new marketing-to-sales value chain. But while this is happening, more and more businesses are jumping onto the Content Marketing bandwagon and it is getting noisy. Just like with traditional media, we are able to filter and tune out much of the content coming our way.

Great – especially creative – content is still very powerful for inbound marketing, but what about when your rifle [target] list for a campaign is in the 100s of companies? What about when your contact universe is highly focused? Can you rely on these target companies to search for and find “you” on the web when they are ready to make a buying decision? No!

Enter the multi-touch digital and direct campaign. Sometimes, you need to bring out all the fly-fishing tackle and a range of flies. We are doing this with early success at one of our clients right now. We are running integrated multi-touch revenue programs. Creative campaigns to drive leads and nurture potential new relationships toward highly targeted audiences:

Creative and entertaining theme – a serious business messages delivered to real people

Direct mail – yes we are sending packages to these clients… just like the old days

F2F inside sales – we pre-call, call and post call at each touch point

eMail – we continue to use email as another impression – researching to find the right people

Content – white papers and video help to reinforce the value proposition

Call to action – we make an offer you can’t refuse -attend the briefing /webinar and get a thank you gift

LinkedIn ads – LinkedIn ads help you target down to the very specific people you want to reach

So far so good. This audience has been inundated with competitive messages, but we are getting our client’s brand out front with engaging content and enough brand touches to nurture the relationships for the long term.